Its now or never

By Anonymous · Dec. 21, 2008

I guess I had been aware of wanting a septum piercing for a few years, but never really seriously considered getting one. Anyway, I could never have a piercing like that where I worked, its just not something anyone there would do! Then, in the space of a couple of days, I noticed two other fairly conservative looking people with beautiful looking septum rings. Its hard to describe why I liked them so much, they just seemed so perfectly centred and in proportion. I really wanted one!

Then I met up with one of my friends at the pub one night. I was a bit puzzled when he stuck his fingers up his nostrils and started fishing around, then my puzzlement turned into amazement when he produced a shiny new septum ring! I had no idea they could be flipped up and hidden. Now I knew I was going to get one!

After another 6 months of finding excuses not to go through with it, the Easter long weekend came along and I realised that I had run out of excuses. This was to be my fourth piercing so not exactly a new experience, but finding the courage to walk through the door of my piercer never gets any easier! After walking around the block a few times I eventually went in and asked a few general questions  they could do it at 14 guage, they would use a circular barbell which I could flip up, yes they could do it today..... Before I knew what I was doing I said "Thanks I'll think about it" and walked out. D'oh! After 45 minutes more of walking around the block, I started walking back to my car. Luckily I caught myself just in time and thought "this is ridiculous  its now or never".

After filling out the paperwork and waiting for the piercer to get everything ready, I was called into the room. I was so nervous but somehow managed to make my way in. As always the piercing room was completely spotless. This is the first piercing where I've had to sit up for the whole process so it was good to be able to see a bit more of what was going on. I really appreciated how many times he changed gloves, even though he seemed to do everything without actually touching anything. The whole time I'm sitting there I'm thinking "its not too late, I can still leave! What am I doing, people like me don't get nose rings!". He cleaned my nose, told me not to breathe through my nose while he disinfected it, then went to mark it. This is when he said "Hmm, its not even worth marking  you've got a really shallow septum". Perfect, finally a real excuse not to go through with it! I said "if you can't do it I'm happy to not go through with it", to which he just smiled and said "
oh, we'll get it in there!". Bugger...

Finding the sweet spot was a bit of a different process to the experiences I've read on BME. He placed the clamps on my septum and moved them around until we found the most comfortable spot. Eventually we found it, he fiddled around with the final placement for a few minutes, the clamps were tightened and there was nothing left to do but get the needle out. He asked if I was ready..."NO" was my reply! After a couple of minutes of small talk he said he was just going to place the needle on the side of my nose ready. That didn't sound too bad so I let him go...then he got me to start breathing deeply and on the second breath he pierced it. It was just a short sharp pinch followed by the sensation of the needle sliding through, followed by another short sharp pinch when it exited the other side. On a pain scale of 1 to 10, with nipple piercing being a 10, it rated about a 3.

Wow, what a rush  I did it, it didn't even really hurt, he's putting the ring in, its bleeding, he's showing me the blood on a bit of guaze  omg, I don't feel so good! He asked if I was okay  all I could do was shake my head through fear of throwing up if I opened my mouth. He told me to sit back, I started feeling faint, hot, cold, clammy, "is it okay if I lie down?"...... When I opened my eyes he was just securing the balls and trying to flip it up. Took a bit of fiddling around to open up the ring enough but he eventually got it up there. Ben was so professional about the whole thing, making absolutely sure I was okay before I left, getting me water to drink and a lolly pop to help my blood sugar.

All the way home I couldn't stop looking looking up my nose in the mirror, I was so happy with it. When I got home I had a good look in the mirror and had a horrible feeling it wasn't straight. Over the next few days I kept an eye on it as the swelling subsided and it moved into its final position. When I finally worked out how to flip it down, my heart sank as I realised that it indeed wasn't straight  but then neither was my nose, or my septum, or my mouth, or my eyes...it was perfectly placed to compensate for all these things. I then had a real appreciation for why piercers are called artists  without me even knowing it he'd taken all these factors into consideration and given me a perfectly placed piercing.

Healing was completely uneventful  a couple of times a day I just dunked my nose into a cup full of warm sea-salt solution and blew bubbles followed by careful cleaning with a q-tip. I think I only had crusties once and in around 5 weeks it was pretty much healed.

It took me a while before I started wearing it flipped down, worried about what people would think of an older guy with a septum ring. All my fears were for nothing, I get nothing but positive comments from people. I absolutely love my septum piercing and my only regret is not getting it done sooner!

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submitted by: Anonymouson: 21 Dec. 2008in
Nose Piercing

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Artist: BenStudio: Punktured+at+Off+Ya+TreeLocation: Adelaide

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